


I Like Watching You Go

by incon



Category: Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-12 03:30:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12950361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incon/pseuds/incon
Summary: Seungwan befriends the friendly neighbourhood grim reaper.





	I Like Watching You Go

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work of gross, tedious, and unedited fiction. If you're anything like me, that's kinda like heaven. Warnings for severe medical inaccuracies ahead.

**I like watching you go.**

 

“I too pass from the night,

I stay a while away O night, but I return to you again and love you.”

—  The Sleepers, Walt Whitman

 

She finds her on a bench outside, eating red bean ice-cream in the cold, playing with a stray cat. The tomcat’s a poor thing — patchy-furred and probably as flea-infested as it looks. It’s curling around her ankles like the sweetest thing. And Seungwan suspects there’s something wrong with it, because it’s purring as loud as the revving of an engine.

It’s too early in winter for snow, but the air’s harsh and sharp, and with every breath Seungwan sees white.

“That’s one messed-up cat,” she says, pulling the sleeves of her cardigan past her wrists and rubbing them together. She goes to sit next to Joohyun on the bench.

Joohyun takes her time to reply, stroking the cat’s balding head lightly. There’s pink underneath the receding fur. The poor thing won’t last the next winter, looks like. When she does reply, it’s only a non-committal hum that’s somewhat sympathetic. That’s all Seungwan gets.

So Seungwan tries again, “It likes you.”

The cat’s tail flicks up in the air. “It’s cold,” Joohyun says, pausing in between to slot the ice-cream bar into her mouth, past red-painted lips. “It’ll do anything.”

“It _is_ cold,” Seungwan says. She stretches her cardigan further to wrap around herself. “It’s freezing.”

At this, Joohyun seems to have a thought, turning her head slightly to Seungwan as though considering something. Then she says, “Want my coat?”

Seungwan frowns and leans forward in interest. “You know, about that…why _do_ you wear a coat? Are you cold? Do you change outfits?”

Joohyun’s already in the process of removing her coat, holding the cold bar between her teeth as she slips her arm out of the coat, then another, the shrugs it off and folds it carefully, as if holding a precious thing, over her arm. It leaves her in an oversized beige turtleneck that’s folded at the sleeves to meet her wrists and tucked in at her waist. She says, teasingly, “You want to see me in shorts and a t-shirt in summer?”

“I couldn’t even imagine.”

Joohyun only laughs, frustratingly cryptic. But her eyes are kind today, though, as fleeting as that may be. Her hands are gentle in their ministrations towards the stray, and the point of her mouth isn’t cruel. Seungwan feels a dim ache of loss, for some reason. Joohyun looks impeccable as ever, but she feels like a cold, steel wall that Seungwan faces.

Joohyun gives the coat a quick swipe with her palm, ridding it of any fur, then hands it to Seungwan. Seungwan looks at the offer. “Aren’t you cold?”

There’s an amused, yet patient look in Joohyun’s sideways glance that Seungwan takes as, ‘no, of course I don’t feel cold’. Fumblingly Seungwan accepts the coat; drapes over herself like a long coat. There’s a subtle fragrance to it — some floral-scented fabric softener and a soft, bodily scent that could only be Joohyun’s.

“I won’t be long,” Seungwan says; she can’t help but feel a little guilty for being a nuisance.

“Take your time,” says Joohyun. She lifts her face skyward, eyes fluttering shut momentarily at the tease of wind. “The sky looks nice today.”

Indeed it does; there’re wispy cirrus clouds cotton-balling the blue sky, like streaks of white in water. The sun is absent, and there’s no blazing heat to chase winter away. The stray cat sits at her feet, butting its head at her ankle, desperate for some loving. Joohyun looks even lovelier like this; undisturbed, serene, a little wistful. Truly divine.

It feels like a moment that should be left as it is, in silence and melancholy, but the silence feels too heavy on Seungwan. She’s never been one for silence; always felt the need to break it with a sledgehammer.

So Seungwan says, awkwardly: “How was your day?”

Joohyun opens her eyes, huffing out a laugh. “You’re asking me how my day went?”

“Well, yeah, I guess.”

Seungwan feels the need to bury herself deeper within the coat, press her face to the sweet-smelling velveteen lapels of Joohyun’s coat and disappear. It’s wondrously soft and silken and the fabric isn’t itchy. Joohyun, on the hand, is pleasantly beguiled by Seungwan’s attempts at a conversation.

“I’m sure you already know how my day went, Doctor,” Joohyun replies, whimsically. She returns to her ice-cream, having another go at it.

Ah, right — the pneumonic man in ward 52 and the construction worker with the hacking cough in ward 27. And the comatose patient in ICU. Seungwan had seen their charts. She accepts it more readily than she should have, and that surprises her. It had been different in the beginning, amateur mistakes and excessively optimistic notions of her medical career and all that — a death had been a loss of life back then.

And here is death manifested — a delicate, dark-haired and small-waisted (and just generally small) young woman who looks to be in her early twenties; lips painted red and face as pale as a porcelain doll’s. Eyes like the edge of a sharpened surgical-steel scalpel, pretty small mouth pursed pensively, a definitive presence that she bears on her slight shoulders. You’ll know it’s the end when you see her. 

Death is a little more hormonally imbalanced than Seungwan would have thought. She’s just as cryptic and imposing, undoubtedly. The intensity of her stare alone raises gooseflesh all around, and any close proximity feels almost repulsive; there’s something about her nature that’s as repelling as same-poled magnets. It could just be left as human nature, Seungwan supposes.

Life and death must continue to chase each other until death inevitably catches up, after all. Life’s swift-footed and spry but death works at a steady pace.

But for death to have mood-swings? That’s brand new. She must have acquired some personality over the last millennia or so. For death to be gentlemanly and offer Seungwan her coat, or play with pesky strays, or just do anything that isn’t ferrying souls away, is just completely alien to Seungwan.

When Seungwan had said: “You’re different than what I’d expected”, Joohyun had smirked and said, “Met many like me, haven’t you?”

“Hmm,” Seungwan hums, and when it’s obvious Joohyun will say nothing more, she goes on: “I had a pretty decent day.”

“Oh?” Joohyun’s throat produces a curious sound at that.

“I haven’t been yelled at,” Seungwan says, laughingly, self-deprecating.

Joohyun snorts, inelegant. Seungwan has to remind herself Joohyun is an ancient celestial being — who also wears oversized cable-knit turtlenecks with sleeves that go up to her knuckles, and sleek double-breasted coats, with a preference for black oxfords. And eats nothing but ice-cream and popsicles all day, in winter. She jabs the ice-cream in Seungwan’s general direction, clucking her tongue. “You work too hard.”

“Well,” Seungwan uneasily says, “people die if I don’t, so…”

“And people die if I do.”

Seungwan shifts closer. The irony has never been anymore jarring but Seungwan believes that, deeply, in their respective natures, they’re more similar than anyone could guess. “I guess we both need a holiday.”

Death actually laughs aloud, a wholesome trill that’s not as silver-toned as one might expect (coming from death, after all) but it makes Seungwan feel warm, for some reason. “Death goes on a holiday?”

“Why not? Give humankind a break. I can’t even wrap my head around how long you’ve been working.”

Joohyun smiles but narrows her eyes, and it gives off the impression that she’s about to impart some mild-mannered chiding, the way doting mothers do to infants. “It’s not a job. I don’t full-time as death. It’s who I am.”

The stray abruptly leaps onto the bench, and Seungwan startles so violently she almost falls off the bench. Joohyun laughs silently through her nose, then strokes along the cat’s head; smiles tenderly when it tilts its head into her touch.

“Greedy,” she says, affectionately.

Seungwan is perched at the edge of her seat. “Do strays just follow you around? Because this is a hospital, y’know. They can’t just all be loitering around waiting for some stranger to feed them.”

Joohyun simply scratches at the cat’s head with neatly-trimmed nails. “They’ve been here longer than you have. Have some respect for your seniors.”

“Should I bow to every old tomcat I see, then?”

“Only if you want to,” Joohyun easily answers, not at all invested in their light banter to even spare Seungwan a look. “I hear the psych ward here has comfortable beds.”

“Ha-ha,” Seungwan quips sarcastically. “I mean, people already think I’m crazy. Might as well, right?”

“Because they think you’re talking to yourself?” Joohyun glances briefly at her, immensely entertained but still distracted. “Want to pass notes, instead? Or Morse-code? You can talk to me by blinking.”

Seungwan’s feeling bold that day, so she openly glares. But it’s lost on Joohyun, who has her so generously given her undivided attention to the cat. It’s purring again, sounding like sputtering car exhausts.

Then Joohyun says, on a completely unrelated note, gently, “Let it stay. It’s already blind in one eye.”

Seungwan says nothing this time, partly because she can’t think of anything else left to say, and partly because she’d never expect death to be compassionate. She watches the breeze, frigid as it is, pick up and lightly tease Joohyun’s hair. Her eyes are alight and filled with some sombre fondness. And Seungwan expects there’s always a touch of sombreness in death’s water-like eyes. She supposes it comes with knowing how time continues to run towards some end.

*

“Are you ever afraid?”

The question comes abruptly as they’re strolling underneath sprinkles of cold rain to a nearby bus stop. The brick walls of the alley rises high around them, and it’s so late at night no one is nearby. The winter is unforgiving in its nights — the cold stings her face and chafes her lips dry. Seungwan sniffs, rubs at her red nose. Joohyun has volunteered her coat again, and now climbs the flights of stairs ahead in nothing but her usual turtleneck. The rain leaves dark splotches on her washed-out-grey sweater. Hazy lamplights halo the crown of Joohyun’s head. Seungwan is careful not too stare for too long.

“Hmm?”

“Was there ever a time when you were afraid?”

She is silent. Fingers a lemon-coloured hair tie she wears around her wrist. Her eyes are distant, and she is faraway from where she stands. Who knows where’s at — submerged in cold, dark waters waiting to die; somewhere lost in abandoned warehouses; trapped in burning vehicles that’s so hot the leather is melting into skin; in muddy trenches with gunfire roaring ahead; in pain and alone.

For a moment her skin looks jaundiced, and the years she wears on her skin seem to become evident by the tricks of light played by the sickly orange spotlight over her. She looks small. Seungwan wants to put her arms around thin, knobbly shoulders and press her face to her sweet-smelling hair and wish it weren’t so.

At long last death says, with a smile that’s meant to be assuring, “It’s what I do.”

Seungwan steps forward, into Joohyun’s space, hands fluttering about but uncertain whether to touch, “I know it is, but —”

“Please,” Joohyun interrupts. “Let’s not talk about this anymore.”

Seungwan lowers her head, studies the cracks on the pavement ahead and the loose bits of gravel she kicks around. She can’t think of anything to defuse the thick tension with so she says, “I miss my mom.”

The moon is ripe and full and bloated above them, and something about it compels her to confess her private thoughts.

“Where is she?”

“She lives far from here. I haven’t seen her in years,” Seungwan laughs, feeling suddenly embarrassed.

“Why not?”

“It’s — uh — complicated,” Seungwan admits. “I don’t think she’s ready to see me yet.”

“I’m sure it can be resolved, whatever it is,” Joohyun says, firmly, fiercely believing it to be true.

Seungwan laughs to just humour Joohyun. “I guess it’ll take time.”

“Hmm.”

“What about you? Is there anything you miss?”

“Me?”

Seungwan nods. Joohyun hums pensively. There’s a stray dog sleeping on a piece of newspaper under a lamppost that they leave alone. It’s ears twitch when they pass by.

“There isn’t much I’d miss, honestly. The world has become a better place than it was before, in some ways. I don’t miss it that much.”

“And there isn’t any ice-cream in the past.”

Seungwan is rewarded with a little giddy laugh at her comment. Joohyun glances sideways at her, warmly and with dancing light in her eyes. Seungwan is struck with some wave-like emotion that has her turning her head away from the sight.

“No,” Joohyun says, “there isn’t that.”

They walk the rest of the way in companionable silence, Joohyun a steady presence by Seungwan’s side. Nightly hikes to her bus stop are usually cumbersome and scary, even, especially in the darker nights when she feels like there are eyes on her, or shadows in the turn of every corner, or lone men standing and waiting. But walking alongside Joohyun, snugly wrapped in a warm coat that smells of fabric softener, and subtler chrysanthemums and lilies, the curve of her shoulders are not pulled tight with tension.

She asks, then, after a while, “Has there been anyone else you could talk to, in the past?”

“You’re the first.”

“I wonder why that is.”

“Hmm,” is all Joohyun says.

“Is that disappointing?”

“Sorry? What is?” Joohyun swings her head to look at her.

“That it’s me, of all people.”

Joohyun frowns slightly. “Why would that be disappointing?”

“I just mean,” Seungwan says, as light-hearted and casual as she can, with a shrug, “there’s so many others who would have been better company than me.”

“What’s wrong with your company?”

“Well, I’m loud and I talk a lot, and I’m burdensome, and cheesy. I worry a lot too, so I talk really fast.”

“Hmm,” Joohyun says again, the inflection in her voice seems to suggest she agrees with all of it.

“So you do agree?” Seungwan doesn’t feel hurt. Not at all.

“You are all that,” Joohyun says, but then smiles (and this time, Seungwan’s feet trip a little and her white breaths stutter in the air before her), “But I like your company, Seungwan-ah.”

Seungwan feels heat rise to her cheeks. She looks straight ahead, avoiding Joohyun’s smirking glances. “I swear to god you’re so conceited.”

“I don’t know; for some reason I feel like I have a right to be.”

“Yeah, right,” scoffs Seungwan. “Oh, we’re here.”

The bus-stop is empty, and save for the occasional passing headlights of cars, there isn’t anyone around either. Seungwan sits on a cold bench, a tad breathless, and begins to undo the buttons of Joohyun’s coat, intending to return it.

But cold, white hands stop her. Seungwan’s head snaps up. “What are you doing?”

“Has it suddenly gotten warmer or have you grown an extra layer of fat?”

“Neither.”

“Exactly,” Joohyun says. “Keep it on.”

“Aren’t you about to leave?”

Joohyun tilts her head to the side. “Do you want me to?”

“No, that’s not what I meant —”

“Let me stay with you, then. Until your bus comes.”

“Worried some weird guy’d come to feel me up?”

Joohyun smiles faintly, and sits next to Seungwan on the bench. Unlike Seungwan, she doesn’t seem at all bothered by the cool acrylic material. “I’m always worried.”

“Is that why you agreed to walk me to the bus stop, and wait with me?”

“Can’t it just be that I like night strolls?” Joohyun asks.

“But the other option sounds so much better. Nobler.” Seungwan picks at invisible lint on the coat. Her voice is deceptively steady through it all but the hummingbird beat of her heart betrays her.

“Oh? You think I’m noble?” Joohyun surveys the empty street with disinterest.

“Well you did give me your coat.”

“I’m glad to be of service,” Joohyun says flatly.

The rain shower has stopped, and the smell of the wet earth rises to meet them. Seungwan chuckles, and thinks, for just one moment, to take Joohyun’s hands in hers. But any thought of that is thwarted by the headlights of an oncoming bus cutting through the sepia-coloured night.

Seungwan makes to hand the coat over, but Joohyun shakes her head, and Seungwan understands, so she leaves it folded on the bench for Joohyun to take. As the bus approaches, Joohyun wets her lips, still painted red and invulnerable to the cold, and says, “You should go home, when you can. See your mother, I mean. If there’s one thing humans feel when I go to greet them, it’s regret. See you later, Seungwan-ah.”

Seungwan stares at the side of Joohyun’s head for a time, at the one ivory ear peeking out between dense hair, then nods. “Goodnight.”

Joohyun turns to smile at her. “Goodnight.”

The driver greets her as she boards the bus, wrapped in a bulky, primary-coloured windbreaker and red-eyed. He expresses his concern over the duration of her wait, especially in the cold and dark. But she only smiles and dismisses them, because while it had been cold and dark, she hadn’t been alone.

*

Other times she’ll read horrible things in the news and wonder how it must be like for Joohyun. She sees bodies draped in white, laid on carpets and hope it’s not too selfish of her to worry about Joohyun instead.

When she sees Joohyun later during her break, she tries not to let the concern show. Joohyun appears as put-together as ever, impeccably dressed in her unfailing combination of coat and oversized turtleneck tucked into black pants. She’s standing outside at the entrance near a trashcan, facing the half-vacant parking lot. There’s a thin trail of smoke wisping up into the air from a still-lit cigarette butt in the trashcan.

“You’re here.”

“Yes.”

There’s grey, trampled piles of snow shovelled to the side of the pavements and roads, quickly turning into mush after a cleaner tossed some salt onto them. Seungwan fidgets with the pager at her waistband.

After a pause, Seungwan timidly asks, “Are you okay?”

Joohyun blinks, bringing her out of whatever that held her down. “Why are you asking me that?”

“You look…like you have a lot on your mind.”

“And that worries you?” Joohyun doesn’t turn her head but spares Seungwan a brief sideways glance that has Seungwan backtracking.

Her voice isn’t hostile or aggressive in the slightest, but it’s clipped clean and reminds Seungwan of the hollow sound metal pipes tend to make. There’s no heat to the words, but it’s enough to stun Seungwan into silence. Seungwan attempts to offer consolation the only way she knows how — she reaches clumsily for Joohyun’s hand, fingertips only skimming past the knuckles before the needle-like cold has her recoiling away. At this, Joohyun looks sharply at her.

Seungwan inhales deeply, unfamiliar with the viciousness and impatience in Joohyun’s eyes, like a keen razor, and Seungwan thinks of deep, wide lacerations needing stitches. Her hand hangs awkwardly in the space between them.

“I’m sorry,” Seungwan says, meekly. She withdraws her hand, then clasps both her hands together in front, fiddling with her fingers and busying herself with them. “I should have asked first. I just thought — I’m sorry.”

Joohyun says nothing. The silence eats them both up. _Say something, please_ , Seungwan begs, inwardly.

Finally, Joohyun says, “My hands are cold. Why would you want to touch them?”

Seungwan swallows. How can she explain herself? “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Joohyun cut across.

“That’s just…how I comfort people when I think they’re hurting,” Seungwan says, as frankly as she can.

There’s a pregnant pause and Seungwan feels like she should just take her leave when she feels icy fingers grasp hers, thumb coming to rest between two knuckles. “Sometimes, I think the world has not grown to be a better place,” is all Joohyun says, staring inscrutably forward.

“That’s okay. I don’t think it’s all that great, either.”

The corner of Joohyun’s lips tick up in a barely-there smile.

“I didn’t even give you my coat.”

“I don’t feel cold.”

“Liar.”

It will have to do for now.

*

It’s in the dead of night and she’s covering Sooyoung’s shift since the girl’s got a date and one of them should have an active love-life. She’s busy sorting out the charts by the nurses’ desk, going over them once, then twice, just to make sure she’s familiar with all the cases, when she hears a voice closely by her ear: “What are you doing?”

She jumps, gooseflesh breaking out all through the skins of her arms. The nurse at the station also startles awake from her drowsy disposition, and is now glancing about the empty corridors frantically, swivel-eyed, to see what the fuss is about. Joohyun quickly apologises, bowing stiffly to the nurse before returning the charts and speed-walking away.

Joohyun keeps up with her pace easily, a ghost of a smile playing at the corners of her lips.

Seungwan continues to briskly walk, the soles of her sneakers squealing against the linoleum flooring, hissing lowly, “Don’t you _ever_ do that again.”

“You were so focused. I doubt anything I did wouldn’t have scared you.”

“I wasn’t _scared_ , I was shocked.”

“That, too.”

Seungwan slows her feet. She feels pressure building behind her eyes, and presses two fingers into the bridge of her nose. “What are you doing here?”

“Should I not be here?”

“No, I — Jesus, why can’t you ever give me a straight answer for once?”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Joohyun has her hands in her coat pockets. “Are you busy?”

“I’m still on my shift, so,” Seungwan says, tugging a sleeve back to see the time on her watch. “Why?”

“It’s snowing outside,” Joohyun says, child-like in the glint of her eyes. “Have you eaten?”

“I had some cut fruits earlier…”

“Come on, then. Take a break,” Joohyun nods towards the elevator lobby. “Cup noodles in this weather; some would die for that.”

“That’s because it’s worth dying for,” Seungwan says. She yawns into her wrist, then blinks the moisture and drowsiness away.

She gives in, in the end, as she waits for her cup noodles to properly cook at a picnic bench. She peels the foil back slightly to see if it’s ready, and the steam that escapes the tiny opening makes her jaw ache. Her stomach produces some gurgling noise that she tries to keep down with an arm pressed across it.

Joohyun appears opposite her, biting into an ice-cream bar. There’s another unopened packet that she leaves on the table, for later. The tomcat emerges from the sparse bushes lining the perimeter of the compound, and sidles up to Joohyun’s leg. Joohyun scratches its head. “I’m not sure what I expected,” says Seungwan, honestly. “How many can you have in a day?”

Joohyun shrugs. “As many as I want.”

“How do you even pay for these?”

Joohyun frowns, teeth working at the hardened dessert. “Did you think I stole them?”

“No, of course not, but how did you even get the money?”

“There’s a surprising amount of profits to be made from this business,” Joohyun says, breezily, shrugging. “I run a monopoly in this industry.”

Seungwan’s eyes have widened alarmingly. “You stole from dead people?”

“No, Seungwan, I’m pulling your leg.”

Seungwan grimaces, “Please don’t say that. Nobody uses that anymore.”

“What do they say then?”

“They say, ‘I’m kidding’, or ‘joking’.”

“Do they?”

“Yes, Joohyun.”

“Actually,” Joohyun says, sitting upright (Seungwan has the distinct feeling that she’s suddenly at a meeting with the board), “I’m older than you are.”

“I don’t doubt that.”

Joohyun narrows her eyes at her, but says nothing more on the subject.

“You’re kidding. You want me to call you ‘unnie’?”

“Decorum expects that of you.”

“You’re really kidding.” She’s not.

*

Seungwan’s having a bad day. Her attending is upset with her for failing to properly diagnose a patient, she’d stumbled and fell during rounds because she’d missed the ‘caution: wet floor’ sign and now bore a knot at the back of her head that throbs in tune with her heartbeat, and she’d missed lunch.

And the last straw just had to be one of her patients dying under her watch.

Death had been in the same room as them, present and silently in wait while the patient seized and foamed at the mouth. Seungwan couldn’t even seem to look at her then, pretending not to have seen anything or acknowledge Joohyun’s presence. She’d called it, scribbled it into the chart so hard that the paper tore, then handed it over to the nurses before storming off.

The air had felt so thick and viscous-like. She needed to leave before she suffocated.

Death follows, naturally. Seungwan’s rinsing her face at the sink, wetting her nape and wincing whenever her fingers chance upon the bump there, when the bathroom door swings open.

“Seungwan-ah,” she calls, because Seungwan still refuses to acknowledge her presence. And it’s childish and immature, Seungwan knows, but she can’t speak without snapping at the moment.

Joohyun frowns, confused. She approaches the sinks, “Seungwan.”

Seungwan continues to vigorously sponge her neck down with wet paper towels. Death looks frightened for a moment (Seungwan never wants to see death afraid ever again — it’s completely foreign and simply frightening on its own), looking wildly about and at a loss of what to do.

“You really can’t see me?” Joohyun asks, quietly, moving forward until her hands touch the solid surface of the sink countertop adjacent to Seungwan’s. “Seungwan?”

It’s cruel, but Seungwan feels justified right then. She feels inflated by some hot anger, and just needs someone to swing punches at.

“I guess you really can’t,” death says, the slope of her shoulders defeated.

Joohyun waits a while more, confirming it for herself. Then she backs away, wetting her lips and blinking rapidly, and leaves.

*

Somewhere between throwing herself into the programme, dedicatedly proving herself to her superiors and the other snivelly interns, and falling into dead, black sleep that’s dreamless and opium-like, her sister calls her some time before sunrise (due to time difference and since she’s still powering through her shift). They speak of trivial things; how each other’s doing, not to fall sick in the cold weather, glossing over things that are harder to swallow, and at the end of it, Seungwan feels effectively drained.

She decides that the cold air will do her some good, so she grabs a woollen cardigan she keeps in her locker and heads out to the outdoor benches that faces a neighbourhood park and falters.

Death’s sitting on a bench, and there’s a black lump curled up next to her, by her thigh. Joohyun’s stroking it, running her fingers along its spine, smoothing down cowlicks. Seungwan is unsure if she should approach Joohyun. She’s not even sure if she knows how to anymore.

She’s about to turn and leave when notices how still the tomcat is, how its mangy body doesn’t rise with breath, and gasps, bringing a hand to her mouth, “Oh no.”

The sun is slow to rise in winter, but the lamplight lends a drab orange hue while they wait.

Seungwan goes to her, anxious, only to see that Joohyun’s eyes are shut towards the direction of the eastern sky. Seungwan hesitates some more; she hovers over the bench.

Joohyun declares aloud, “He’s dead.”

Seungwan winces slightly at that. “You know?”

“Do I know that you can see me?”

Seungwan bows her head, contrite. “Yes.”

“Would I be speaking to you if I didn’t?”

“No, I guess not.”

Joohyun’s scratching at the cat’s sparse fur, producing tufts of it between her fingers as it comes off. It’s stiff, tucked into itself with its head pressed to the side of Joohyun’s thigh.

“I’m sorry.”

She sees the muscles jump in Joohyun’s jaw. Joohyun shakes her head minutely, as if refusing to listen.

“I’m sorry,” Seungwan repeats, louder. She even bows, not caring if anyone catches her bowing to a dead cat. “I really am. I’m sorry.”

Joohyun’s eyes are open, and the look in them leaves Seungwan stricken and transfixed. They’re opaque and dark and unreadable. Like looking into turbulent dark waters and not knowing what’s underneath.

“What are you apologising for?”

“Everything,” Seungwan says. “I’m sorry for pretending like I couldn’t see or hear you. I’m sorry for the cat. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologise,” Joohyun says, eyes still fixed on Seungwan’s face; the dark of her pupils can swallow Seungwan whole.

“But I have to. You didn’t deserve that. I was being immature —”

“I think you’ve forgotten what I am. I’m not like you. You’re not meant to see me. And I think, because you can, I’ve forgotten as well. You don’t have to apologise because you don’t owe me anything. You, especially. Because even for a short while you gave me what nobody could. So, _please_ ,” Joohyun says, “don’t apologise.”

“But I have to…,” Seungwan weakly insists. “I treated you horribly.”

Joohyun turns her face away, shaking her head again. It feels too much like a resigned dismissal. Her hand has stilled on the tomcat; Seungwan moves closer to rest her hand over it, sitting on the bench. Joohyun allows this small concession; lets Seungwan’s hand stay, because what else can she do at this point?

“Let me apologise,” Seungwan murmurs, “I’m sorry.”

“Okay,” Joohyun concedes, at last, as the sky begins to turn indigo, then orange, “It’s okay.”

The sun rises and basks them in warm godly light.

*

Something shifts between them, after. Seungwan’s not sure what it is, but as Joohyun walks alongside her to her bus-stop, so closely by their shoulders brush, or their knuckles would collide, and for a short, cursory moment, their fingers would tangle together, she knows not to question it. Death takes this well in stride, aloof and hardly having to extend the effort.

Seungwan’s much the same. The long hours at the hospital has taken it out of her to be shy, so now they shamble together towards the bus-stop with a simple, familiar sort of affection that’s telling of the many times they’ve done it before.

It’s snowing lightly — only specks of white that falls from the sky and clings onto their hair. Joohyun reaches out to brush them aside, and Seungwan swipes at the one speckle of snow that has fallen onto Joohyun’s nose with a thumb.

“Christmas is coming,” Seungwan says, as a conversation-starter.

“I guess you’re right,” Joohyun nods along. “Are you going back, then?”

“No,” Seungwan shakes her head. “I’ll be working.”

“Oh,” Joohyun says, and there’s a certain inflection to her voice that Seungwan can’t read. “Why?”

“It beats staying at home being sad and alone,” Seungwan shrugs, digging her chin into the lapel of Joohyun’s coat, “Or at a party somewhere surrounded by people I don’t even know. At least at the hospital I’ll be saving lives, being productive.”

Joohyun makes a muted sound of agreement.

“My mom used to —” Seungwan starts to say but stops herself. Some hurts will never scab over, no matter how old they are, or how well they’re taken care of. They’ll just continue to bleed and bleed. She wets her lips, chapped from the cold. “Everyone got together during Christmas,” she says instead, smoothing over any ruffled feathers. “Drank a lot, gambled a lot.”

Her voice latches itself in her throat, choked with tears. She clears her throat self-consciously and moves on. If she blinks rapidly it’s only because of the snowfall that dries out her eyes.

And if Joohyun happens to notice, she makes no indication of it, not at first. But then what once could’ve been mistaken as an accidental, schoolgirl-like brushing of hands, grows bolder and purposeful. Joohyun takes Seungwan’s hand, fingers seeking out and tapping at Seungwan’s palm.

Perhaps Joohyun knows no such as thing as shame, because there is no evident inhibition when she says, “If I had pockets big enough, I’d have let you put your hands in them.”

Seungwan feels heat claw up the back of her neck, lashing at her cheeks. She lets it manifest in an unsteady yet highly amused laugh that washes away any lingering sadness. “You already gave me your coat. At this rate, you might as well have bought me one.”

“But aren’t your hands cold?”

Seungwan glances down, at their linked fingers. “They’re fine.”

“Should I wear a hoodie next time?”

“Stop, oh my gosh, I’m fine.” Seungwan laughs into Joohyun’s shoulder. “But do you seriously have one of those?”

Joohyun nods seriously. “I’ll wear one next time.”

“Will that go with your coat?”

Joohyun gives her an odd look, her brow arched. “What do you care if my clothes don’t match?”

Seungwan stammers, flustered by the unexpected quip. She’s also very much aware of how Joohyun’s grip has tightened on her hand, now that she has returned it in kind. Joohyun’s hand is cold, like those of cadavers in morgues, and it feels as though Seungwan’s holding the hand of winter itself. Joohyun smiles at Seungwan’s clumsy stuttering, watching her lips move and expel white breath intently. Her eyes are exceedingly gentle and attentive, and that only serves to worsen Seungwan’s temporary speech impediment, if anything.

“If your hand’s cold, you should let go,” Joohyun says, with a slight swing of their joined hands.

Seungwan _tsk_ s, but decides on a compromise — she slips their hands into Joohyun’s coat pocket, where its warmer and protected from wintry breezes. “My hand will warm up eventually. Come to think of it, you’d be perfect for a hot summer.”

Death lets out a full-bodied laugh. “I guess so. You won’t need to borrow my coats anymore.”

They’ve arrived at the bus-stop, much sooner than Seungwan would have expected. She’s reluctant to part ways, for some inexplicable reason. Joohyun seems to understand, waiting for Seungwan to walk away first. There’s a nurse Seungwan recognises from work who lives in the flat above hers, and is currently waiting for the bus as well, half-dozing.

“I was thinking,” Seungwan begins to say, at the same time Joohyun patiently inquires: “Are you not going?”

Seungwan repeats, “I was thinking. I have ice-cream, at my place. And I don’t normally eat them, especially not in winter, but they’re about to go bad and it would be a waste if no one ate them.”

Joohyun pauses in thought, considering it with thinning lips. “Are you sure?”

Seungwan softens at Joohyun’s uncharacteristic uncertainty. “Yes,” she assures.

Joohyun nods, then agrees, “It would be a waste of ice-cream.”

They don’t speak at the bus-stop, out of consideration for the exhausted nurse and also because Seungwan doesn’t need any odd looks from anyone else. They do continue to hold hands within the confines of Joohyun’s coat pocket. And Joohyun stands barely inches away, a secret smile playing at the corner of her lips.

Joohyun doesn’t bother to pay as she boards the bus, and that doesn’t surprise Seungwan, who greets the usual bus driver with a bow and a quick ‘hello’. The nurse has fallen asleep at her seat, leaning her head against the window, by the time Seungwan makes it to hers. Joohyun joins her; their thighs touch whenever Seungwan shifts. Seungwan feels too hot all of a sudden.

Her hand grows clammy in Joohyun’s coat pocket so she slips their hands free, ignoring the question in Joohyun’s eyes as she presses the back of Joohyun’s hand to her neck instead, so as to not overheat. Joohyun presents her other hand almost immediately, without words, and before Seungwan could accept or refuse, has already pressed it against Seungwan’s cheek.

“You’re pretty ballsy, huh,” Seungwan mutters under her breath. Joohyun catches it, leaning in and laughing; brings in the sweet-smelling fragrance of chrysanthemums and lilies.

“What would you expect me to be?”

The night outside blends into a slur of browns, black and turmeric-orange, and death has never looked anymore alive than in the lurid fluorescent lighting of the bus. The glare of the lighting is reflected in her dark eyes, and somehow it seems to gaily caper about. Seungwan only looks anaemic and washed-out next to Joohyun, hair in a mess from static on the fabric seats. But she’s smiling into her fist that’s propped up against the window sill, trying not to make it seem obvious.

And despite how chalky Joohyun’s skin is, and the winter her touch brings, and this yawning chasm between them that’s as wide as running waters, it’s hard to think of anything else other than the fact that they bring each other happiness.

*

Seungwan sheds Joohyun’s coat carefully, folding it over the back of a wooden chair she has at her study desk. The remaining layers she peels off and hangs it upon coat hooks on the wall. Death looks misplaced in this small space Seungwan calls home. It’s as though Joohyun should never be contained, and how Joohyun’s eyes flit from here to there, taking in everything that’s a part of Seungwan and came to rest here, has Seungwan feeling warm.

“You’re my first visitor,” Seungwan says, nudging her shoes to the side. She rubs her palms together anxiously. Death seems to notice something.

“Oh,” Joohyun says, and proceeds to toe out of her oxfords. “I’m sorry.”

“No, please,” Seungwan hurriedly says, “feel free to wear them. It’s really okay. I don’t mind.”

“It’s your home,” Joohyun shakes her head, kneels to align her shoes by the wall as Seungwan had done.

Death pads barefooted to the kitchenette, to where Seungwan is boiling water for tea. “I’m sorry it’s a little cramped,” Seungwan says, from rubbing her palms together to rubbing her arms. “And a mess.”

Joohyun denies all with a shake of her head, humming. She gives the place another once-over, and smiles so openly her eyes wrinkle, “The flooring is slow to the cold, your mattress is close to the heater and the bathroom, the piping isn’t braying like an ass every few seconds, and it has a certain off-kilter charm to it.”

Seungwan turns and leans her hip against the counter. She crosses her arms. “‘Off-kilter’?”

“Your walls are lime green.”

“It came with the flat and I didn’t have time to repaint.”

“What would you have chosen then?”

“Hmm, something like Robin’s egg? Or lavender? Something easier on the eyes, for sure. But now that you’re here, I guess you’ll have to do.”

Joohyun does not react at first, not for a few seconds, until she mock-shivers and arches a brow. “Wow, you’re unbelievably cheesy.”

Seungwan shrugs. “I bet you’ve been to many houses.”

Joohyun has now taken interest in Seungwan’s small and compact fridge. She finds photos, both new and old, stuck to the fridge, as well as post-its with handwritten messages on them and to-do lists, and explores them with her eyes. Joohyun replies, distractedly, “Not really. You’d be surprised how little people die in their homes.”

“That’s kind of sad.”

“I don’t think it matters where,” Joohyun says. “As long as you’re with people you love.”

She taps a fingertip at an old discoloured photograph, one of Seungwan as a child. “I usually don’t stay after. I don’t think it’s right of me to go looking through their things without permission. So this is new for me, too.”

“You seem to be enjoying yourself very much,” Seungwan muses. She produces two mugs from the cabinet, and makes them tea. “Sugar? I know you have a sweet-tooth.”

Joohyun is now reading the post-its individually. And she reads them so raptly too, as though she’s reading some thrilling novel. “I mostly eat ice-cream because it’s cold, and I like the texture. I don’t really know how it tastes like.”

Seungwan drops a spoon in the sink. She whirls around, eyes comically large. “ _What_?”

Joohyun appears flippant about this new piece of information. “I can’t taste food.”

“Why not?”

“That’s a funny thing to ask. Why do _you_?”

“Because I have taste buds that work; why don’t _you_?”

Joohyun shrugs. “It’s not something I need.”

“What is? Food?”

“Food, taste buds,” Joohyun’s fingers skim towards Seungwan’s childhood photo again. “How old were you when this was taken?”

“About four or five,” replies Seungwan vaguely. “So all those ice-cream bars you ate — it was because you liked how cold it was?”

Joohyun nods, “Yeah.”

“Why not just eat ice, then?”

Joohyun grimaces, “Ice is inconvenient to eat, and it doesn’t melt as well.”

“It doesn’t melt as well?” Seungwan echoes, brows hiking high up her forehead in disbelief.

Joohyun makes a sound at the back of her throat in agreement. “You know what I mean, melted ice-cream is thicker and slush-like.”

Not wanting to let on how bad Seungwan feels for her, Seungwan goes back to make tea, spooning sugar into both mugs of tea. Seungwan hands a mug to Joohyun to take when Joohyun asks, “Am I really your first visitor?”

Joohyun accepts the hot tea, curling both palms around the mug in apparent disregard of the heat.

“Yes,” Seungwan says.

“I’m honoured.”

“It’s no honour,” Seungwan scoffs laughingly. “It’s nothing much.”

“It’s yours,” Joohyun easily replies, as though it’s the most obvious thing.

Seungwan shyly deflects, “Usually, in another context, death coming to visit sounds really scary.”

Joohyun laughs, “Do you think I’m scary?”

Seungwan recalls Joohyun’s stormy, volatile eyes, unsmiling lips and waxen complexion, but then there’s also the hearty laugh that’s not quite what Seungwan expects, the frisky coltishness and just how gentle and considerate Joohyun is. Perhaps what scares Seungwan most is that she’s only scared of Joohyun being lonely and lost, driven by nothing but purpose and utility.

“No, I don’t think you’re scary at all,” Seungwan admits.

Joohyun looks glad. She sips at her tea daintily; Seungwan can see the jut of her wrist bone.

Seungwan spends the transition between late night to early morning sipping tea and sharing hushed laughter with Joohyun. She’s bone-tired and tripping on her own feet when she falls into bed some time after the sunrise, and death looms over her, looking down with absolute fondness.

She doesn’t ask to stay, and Seungwan’s mind isn’t functioning properly to form any coherent sentences, so Joohyun adjusts the quilt blanket on Seungwan’s mattress further up her shoulders and leaves.

“Sleep well, Seungwan-ah.”

*

Seungwan dreams. She dreams of running, of being chased by some dark, shadowy entity. She’s sprinting but her legs don’t carry her far — they’re as heavy as lead — and claw-like hands are darting out to seize her ankles, licking at her soles, rushing to swallow the ground beneath her. There’s nothing in the distance, just miles and miles of concrete.

She runs and she runs and — she wakes up breathless and afraid.

*

Sooyoung is at the nurse’s terminal trying to draw up previous logs and entries when Seungwan comes by.

“Oh, unnie.”

“How was your date?”

Sooyoung’s busy typing into the terminal and bringing her face close to the screen to see, “Well, it went.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? I covered a shift for you. The least you could do was give me a report,” Seungwan complains, clipping her pager back onto her waistband.

“We went on a date,” Sooyoung says, a shrug evident in the nonchalant tone of her voice, “we had fun.”

“Oh yeah? And what does ‘fun’ mean?”

“Sex. It means sex, unnie.”

“Oh. That’s helpful.”

“Isn’t it,” Sooyoung intones blandly. She appears to have made some discovery of her own, because she’s bounding off to report her latest findings with a yelled promise over her shoulder to see Seungwan at lunch. The nurse at the station gives Seungwan a dirty look, and between Sooyoung’s poor hospital etiquette and pastime activities, Seungwan finds herself unable to explain her friend’s behaviour. She bows her apology instead, and hurries off to be needed elsewhere.

And almost runs into a patient. Lanky and bedraggled and in a pale pink hospital gown that only reaches past her knees. She hauls around a portable IV stand, and it’s evident from the way she’s wheezing and sweating that she’s not supposed to be out of bed.

“Jesus,” Seungwan gasps. “You scared me!”

“Sorry,” the patient wheezes. “Be outta your way.”

She’s doubled over, relying mostly on the stand to take her weight, which probably isn’t much judging from how gaunt she looks.

“No, wait, hold on,” Seungwan says, and makes a grab for the patient’s arm (gently, of course). She glances about for a nurse. “Why are you roaming around? Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

“I’m fine,” the patient insists, and makes several pathetic attempts to wrench her arm out of Seungwan’s grip.

“Uhuh, sure you are. Nurse!”

The dirty-look nurse comes running. She seems to be at the short end of her patience today, but immediately catches on and moves to escort the patient back to her ward. The patient, having realised that she has lost, is now shuffling resignedly towards her ward. She sees to it that the patient won’t be wandering the corridors by employing several nurses to watch her before she goes about her way.

*

Sooyoung’s lethargically picking at her sandwich during lunch when Seungwan joins her at the cafeteria. She looks effectively burnt-out with her elbows resting on the table and her green scrubs rumpled.

“Hey,” Seungwan says as she sits across the exhausted intern, “do you happen to know this patient in ward 19? About mid-twenties, long straight hair, skinny?”

Sooyoung thinks momentarily. “Oh, the potential organ donor.”

“Potential organ donor? Which organ? Are you telling me you have an organ transplant and you didn’t even tell me about it?”

 “‘ _Potential_ ’, like _really ‘_ potential’. And I mean all organs, except for the heart. Maybe even the corneas too.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Sooyoung?”

Sooyoung lifts her head to look at Seungwan, fixed with the same bored expression she’s been wearing all through lunch. “I mean she’s dying. Congenital heart defect.”

Seungwan grips the edges of the table, leaning back from Sooyoung’s indifferent gaze. “Is that how you see her? A bag of organs?”

Sooyoung frowns at Seungwan’s heated glare, slipping into a veneer of defensiveness. “What’s the matter with you? You’re a doctor — you see people die every day. You’re always like this: you get too involved and you only end up hurting yourself for no reason.”

“That’s not the same thing,” Seungwan stands, abandoning her tray, all appetite diminished. “I _am_ a doctor but one thing I do also have is respect for my patients and the human body.”

She leaves hastily, livid. She goes to find her attending to request for a transfer to the heart patient’s case. Her attending frowns at her as though she’s deranged, and questions her sudden request, and had initially refused since several interns were already attached to the case. But upon bargaining to do a month’s worth of charts in exchange for a spot on the case, her attending finally caved.

Sooyoung will speak to her eventually, but not now. The anger’s still fresh and Seungwan supposes it’s due to Joohyun’s influence that she’s behaving this way. Seeing death often, she supposes, will leave one with a better appreciation for life.

She studies the patient’s charts religiously, with a kind of fervour she doesn’t quite understand herself. Among the many things she’s learnt about her patient’s heart defect and past medical history, she also learns that the patient’s name, age and zodiac sign — Kang Seulgi, twenty-three years old, Aquarius.

*

**Author's Note:**

> If I don't come back to edit this, it'll most likely mean I'm dead.


End file.
